Supreme Court debates Biden government's deportation policy

The Democratic administration had sent instructions to the immigration police (ICE) in September 2021 asking them to focus their efforts exclusively on foreigners who pose a terrorist or criminal threat.

According to estimates, more than eleven million illegal immigrants live in the United States and "we do not have the resources to arrest and deport each one" of them, had justified the minister to the Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

This policy represented a reversal from that of Republican President Donald Trump, who wanted to deport all undocumented immigrants without regard to their degree of integration into American society.

Like all the immigration measures of the Democratic government, it was immediately challenged in court by conservative states. They had pleaded that it was going to cause them additional costs in terms of education, police and social services.

After contradictory court decisions, the new instructions were finally blocked in June as part of a complaint brought by the State of Texas.

The government then appealed to the Supreme Court to be able to apply its policy. In July, the high court had refused to intervene urgently and, since then, the instructions have remained dead letters.

But the High Court had agreed to consider the case on the merits. During a hearing Tuesday morning in Washington, she will therefore hear the arguments of the federal government and Texas.

- Menace - 

His arrest, expected in the spring, will be closely scrutinized in a country facing historic migratory flows: more than 227,000 migrants were still arrested in September at the border with Mexico.

Under rules set by the Democratic administration, however, the decision will only relate to foreigners who entered the United States illegally before November 1, 2020.

Even if Donald Trump's government has never carried out the mass expulsions regularly promised by the ex-president, these migrants have lived under this threat throughout his term and hope that the Court offers them some peace of mind.

The judgment could weigh more broadly on relations between the federal government and the fifty American states.

In an argument sent to the Court, the Democratic administration argues that each "federal policy can have an indirect impact on the expenditures, resources or activities of a State" but that Texas has not suffered sufficient harm to warrant the right to sue.

For her, accepting Texas' complaint although it does not quantify the damage suffered "could allow each state to file a complaint against any federal policy" and hamper the functioning of the administration.

During a presentation of the case to the Cato Institute think tank, lawyer Amy Mason Saharia pointed out that in July, the four magistrates of the Court - the three progressives and their conservative colleague Amy Coney Barrett - had separated from the majority.

At the time, the four judges had let it be known, without specifying their reasons, that they would have agreed with the government. For Amy Mason Saharia, it is therefore difficult to predict whether the Court will make a decision "with a limited or broad impact".